The City Of Masks
by Pretty.Little.Liars
Summary: The question of good or evil, reduced to one simple choice: Survive. Or perish. ---- SzayelOC ---- Alternate Reality
1. The End

**Title:** The City Of Masks  
**Genre:** Romance / Horror / Angst  
**Rating:** M (for dark themes)  
**Pairing:** Szayel x OC, probably others  
**Spoilers:** Only for sword releases, because it's completely AR  
**Summary:** The question of good or evil, reduced to one simple choice: Survive. Or perish.  
**Word Count:** 1,979  
**Warnings:** Alternate Reality, massive character deaths, 100-years post Winter War in which the shinigami lose and Aizen pwns.

**Disclaimer:** Szayel is mine. _Mine_ I tell you! Summery belongs to _Heroes_ and Tim Kring.

**A/N:** Was watching Renji and Szayel fight and decided that Szayel ties with Grimmjow for my favorite Espada. Why, I don't know. Probably because I'm still angst-ing over Renji killing Ilforte. And no one ever writes about poor Szay. So I'll do it.

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_"Revovling. And each time it's touched by the light of the sun and the moon. The world is always changing into something new."  
-Ichigo, Episode 109: Ichigo And Rukia, Thoughs In Revolving Sky_

* * *

She didn't really remember too much about the end of the war. She was young at the time. Not a child, but young nonetheless. Just a soul in Western Rukongai District 34. Not even knowing she had even the slightest shred of spiritual energy, not knowing much about the Seireitei or the war. Only knowing that a few of Soul Society's captains had defected and was attempting to create something by sacrificing a large number of souls. And she definitely didn't know how horribly her life was going to change one night in December.

The Gate had opened so suddenly in the Rukongai, that souls, hers included, had fallen through, landing in human world, in a place called Karakura Town. Later she would learn that a man named Urahara Kisuke had opened the tunnel, in order to send Hitsugaya Toshiro through for reinforcements.

And she had never seen the living world, not since she died. And even though the memories of her human life were cloudy and fragmented, she knew it was nothing like was she found when she landed on the other side of the Senkai Gate.

They were in a deep hole, dark night sky above them, smoke covering everything. She remembered being grabbed roughly by the shoulders by a man with blond hair, his grey eyes impossibly wide in shock as he shook her. "Who are you?!" He had demanded, fingers digging painfully into her shoulders. She couldn't answer, too shocked, too confused. "You shouldn't be here!" He continued, still loud. "Aizen is going to attack any minute! This city will be destroyed! You're not even-" He froze when, from above them there came a blood-curdling scream. "Ururu…" he whispered, head whipping around, before letting her go and vanishing.

She, and the other souls who had fallen through the gate stood there, confused and scared, screaming in shock when a explosion went off in the air around them, rocks tumbling into the hole and rumble and dust flying everywhere.

They scattered and she found herself alone, climbing out of what seemed like a miles deep ditch, coughing, scraping the skin off her hands, her knees, as she slid and tumbled and tried to reach the surface.

She had never seen a war-zone before, or any kind of battle. And she knew that, if given the chance, she'd rather never see it again.

She had assumed, when the blond man had said that the city would be destroyed, and knowing what she vaguely knew about the defected captain sacrificing souls, that it would have been sudden. That, one moment the city would be there, and the next it would be gone, encompassed and compressed into whatever that energy was needed for. But that was not what was happening.

Explosions bombarded the air, debris flying everywhere. There were people screaming. Humans running from enemies that they could not see, wondering what was happening. The few and far between humans who _could_ see the enemy, but did not understand what it was. Souls from the newly dead, not understanding what had happened. Children where crying. The street she was on was littered with bodies.

Among the human corpses, she could make out the lifeless forms of figures clad in black, shinigami who had died for this war. And some of them, she saw as she ran by, were young. Too young. Academy students, not old enough to fight, to know how to properly wield a sword. Too young to have been shoved into this battle. Too young to have died for it.

She remembered tripping over something in the road, falling face first into uneven concrete, feeling the gravel bite into her hands, her knees, her face, felt blood pool in mouth as her lip split. Half turning, she screamed when she saw she had tripped over the body of one of those young shinigami students. She scrambled backwards, eyes wide and teary as she stared at it's eyes, lifeless and vacant, neck bend at an unnatural angle, sword several feet from his outstretched arm, next to her.

A shockwave shook the ground and a chill shot up her spine as she heard laughter from behind her. Heart beating loudly in her ears, throat dry, she turned.

She remembered staring up, feeling fear clutch at her heart at the evil grin the man's mouth was stretched into, felt her heart tremble in terror at the maniacal glint in eyes half-hidden by sea-green hair. Scrambling for purchase, trying to rise so she could run, her hand fell on the hilt of the dead shinigami's katana. The fact that it hadn't dissipated with the boy's death, meant that it wasn't fused with his reiatsu yet. It's wasn't a zanpaktou; it was just a regular sword.

But the man before her was taking sauntering steps forward, wide strides bringing him closer and closer as his sneer grew wider and wider at her attempts so shuffle away. Her hand tightened around the hilt of the sword, subconsciously knowing it would do no good, but instinct forcing her to try.

Arm trembling in terror, she clenched her muscles as she forced herself to swing the weapon. But the man, the monster, in front of her, grabbed her wrist and stopped her. With a harsh pull, he yanked her towards him, her eyes level with the impossibly wide grin, the glinting fangs.

"Nuh-uh-uh," he said, the grip on her wrist tightening to the point of pain. "That's not very nice." And then he yanked her by the arm again, moving fluidly out of the way so she sailed past him.

She remembered slamming violently into the crumbling wall of a building, remembered her face colliding with the concrete, felt her nose break, felt the sword she was still holding fall from slack fingers. She felt herself slide to the ground, the back of her skull thudding against the road, as rubble fell from the wall and on top of her.

The last thing she remembered was the blurry outline of the man who had thrown her tossing his head back and laughing. And then… everything went black.

-

She woke to a pale face above her, dark hair, glasses glinting off of broken glass. Their mouth was moving, but she couldn't hear them. Eyes wide, she looked up at them, blood dried uncomfortably to her face, pain shooting through her nose.

"Concussion," the man above her said to himself, before his eyes, as blue as the sky she remembered in Soul Society, focused on hers. "I'm going to help you."

-

After the boy (for he was a boy, too young for the weight of responsibility she saw in his eyes, in the set of his jaw and shoulders) had patched her up, she had found herself alone in the remains of Karakura Town, now a desolate wasteland of what it once was.

Buildings broken, falling down. Roads torn up and uneven. Glass everywhere. Blood everywhere. Bodies everyone. The entire city filled with the sound of crying, crying, crying. Dust and smoke blotted out the sky, until it seemed like it was night all the time. The survivors wandered with dazed looks on their faces or cried next the bodies of those that they knew. Souls stood over their bodies, not knowing what would happen. And the shinigami who were still in the living world fell to the ground where they stood, knowing that they had lost. Lost the war, lost their friends and comrades and families, lost the will to fight anymore.

The Winter War was over.

Later, she would learn that, it was impossible to return to Soul Society. The leader of their enemy did not control his new world from there, but Seireitei had crumbled, too. It was there, but it was nothing like the power it had once been. And wasn't that what the man had wanted? He didn't want to rule Soul Society, he wanted to bring it down. He didn't want to be the captain-commander of the Gotei 13, he wanted to be a god. And so now, from his throne in the Hollow world, he reigned over the Arrancar and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he had won.

She could see it in what happened to Karakura in the aftermath. Hollows roamed free. Without the ability to open gates to the living world any longer, only the few shinigami still there could deal with them. They were stuck there. The Hollows ate the souls that were now scattered throughout the city. But soon, because there were so few shinigami and so many Hollows, soon there weren't enough souls to feed them.

And Aizen's plague began to spread. Out from Karakura like the creeping tentacles of an octopus, searching for new prey, searching for new food. And it infected everywhere it touched. Every city in their wake, was left like Karakura. Until the government sent scientists and specialists to find out what was causing the death of so many, the destruction of so much.

But it did no good. How could you study that which you could not see?

And when the government send in troops to forcibly extract the cause of the ruin, they were destroyed. And when country after country took interest in the plight of Japan and send in troops to help, they too were destroyed. You could not fight something you couldn't see. You couldn't attack something you couldn't see. And soon, the entire country of Japan belonged to Aizen and his Hollows.

It was decided by the leaders of the world, that the problem in the land of the rising sun was a disease, a virus, and the country was shut off from the outside world by a great wall, and the humans within it were left there. And the country was forgotten by the rest of the world. Something to be read about by children in their textbooks. An hour-long special on the History Channel. Some question on a game show.

People in the outside world didn't take an interest in the world inside the wall. Not since it had been built… one hundred years ago…

**

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**

**A/N: **Okay, so this is like, just a prologue, so I can see what people think. This chapter is kind of from an outside perspective, from someone who didn't know a lot about what was going on, so that's why descriptions are nameless and why not many of the normal characters are mentioned. The next chapter will be from Ichigo's standpoint, so you'll find out what happened to who. Since I did mentioned there'd be mass character death. Also you'll find out how the hell there are still survivors, since cannon-ly, Karakura was supposed to be completely destroyed. Also you'll find out what happened to Soul Society, the thing with the gates, and all the other things that get left out of this one. Well, maybe not _all_, but a lot… okay, _some._

So, let me know what you think, I've never written something so far from cannon before, let along a post-war losing-shinigami something. Lol. So, tell me what you think!

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	2. The Last Battle

**Title:** The City Of Masks  
**Genre:** Romance / Horror / Angst  
**Rating:** M (for dark themes)  
**Pairing:** Szayel x OC, probably others (mentions of Ishida x Orihime)  
**Spoilers:** Only for sword releases, because it's completely AR  
**Summary:** The question of good or evil, reduced to one simple choice: Survive. Or perish.  
**Word Count:** 7,071 (Holy crap ya'll! That's 16 pages bizatches!)  
**Warnings:** Alternate Reality, massive character deaths, 100-years post Winter War in which the shinigami lose and Aizen pwns.

**Disclaimer:** Szayel is mine. _Mine_ I tell you! Summary though, belongs to _Heroes_.

**A/N:** Was watching Renji and Szayel fight and decided that Szayel ties with Grimmjow for my favorite Espada. Why, I don't know. Probably because I'm still angst-ing over Renji killing Ilforte. And no one ever writes about poor Szay. So I'll do it.

* * *

"_If fate is like a wheel, then we are the sand that is crushed between the cogs. We are helpless. All we want is power. Even if we can't protect others by extending our hands, we desire a blade for those hands to grasp. … The power to crush one's fate must look like a blade swinging down."  
__-Ichigo, Episode 109: Ichigo And Rukia, Thoughts In The Revolving Sky_

* * *

It seemed ironic to Ichigo, that what they had all been referring to as the "Winter War" never took place in winter. He supposed that it might have, had Aizen's plan worked out more in his favor. Not that he didn't get exactly what he wanted; he just didn't get it the _way_ he wanted.

Ichigo learned later, from who he couldn't recall, but he had learned that Aizen had planned for Inoue to willingly travel to Las Noches with the pale, silent Espada. He had learned that Aizen expected her to slink away in the night like some sort of thief and… Well, Ichigo didn't know what Aizen expected to happen then. He knew what _would_ have happened. Ichigo would have charged blindly into Hueco Mundo to save her. And, knowing what he knew now of Aizen's Espada, he also knew he more than likely would have fought very bravely and died very quickly.

He remembered that afternoon like it was yesterday, if only for the simple fact that it was the day before their Apocalyptic battle, the day before the end of the world. Inoue had been distant, and when she approached him that evening, so shy and quiet and scared, like she had done something wrong, she told him of meeting Ulquiorra and of his offer and of how she wasn't supposed to say anything. And that she believed that Kurosaki-kun could fix everything.

And for almost an entire day, he believed that he could.

He believed, whole-heartedly, that, simply because he had faith in himself and in his companions that they would win. They were the good guys, weren't they? And the good guys always won. He heard Urahara and Rukia and Yoruichi all tell him he needed to be careful, that he should think about this, be more concerned about this. He heard them tell him how strong Aizen was, that he possessed near godlike strength, and something about unlimited reiatsu and blah, blah, blah. There was no way destiny would allow someone like Aizen to win. He believed that with all of his heart. And that pride would be his downfall.

The next day was memorable for its normalcy. Wake up, dodge an attack of "affection" by his father, go to school. Argue with Rukia, with Ishida, with Ikkaku, with Renji. Count down the seconds to the bell. And the three minute walk from their classroom to the courtyard, laughing, laughing, laughing. How was he to know that was the last time he would ever seen most of them ever again?

The garganta opened to their left so suddenly, and so closely, that, for a moment, Ichigo didn't understand what it was. Then the first Cero blast hit, bursting from the garganta before anything else came through and it sent Ichigo and his classmates hurling through the air to land spread out across the courtyard.

He didn't bother to force his body to stand, just grappled with the badge pressing sharply against his hip, pushed it hard against his chest, and rose, hand already sliding Zangetsu from his back. Peering through the dusky air, he saw the dark silhouettes of two Espada he recognized and several he didn't. He knew the big dumb looking one was Yammy, the one Urahara had fought at one point, and how he'd gotten his arm back was anyone's guess. And he knew the smaller, silent one was Ulquiorra, the one who had tried to take Inoue away from them. The others he didn't know, but they seemed weaker, so he didn't care about them.

The next several hours of his life were hell. Filled with screaming and blood and death, so much death. Even now, he could see the others scattered across the schoolyard, some of them not even able to see the Arrancar right in front of their faces. He could see Inoue, her shield glowing like the sun in front of her, eyes hard, but still shimmering with tear that fell silently down her cheeks. Behind her were the bodies of three classmates that Ichigo knew she was friends with, but who he had never spoken with much himself. And now he never would. The two behind her were still. The curly-haired brunette's back was bent at an unnatural angle and even from where he crouched so far away Ichigo could see the pool of blood around the head of the girl with long, dark hair. And they were both still, so still. He saw the last girl, sprawled halfway across Inoue's lap, red hair fallen raggedly around a face that had blood pouring sluggishly from a wound, glasses cracked and broken, was the girl who Ichigo remembered as the one who claimed to love Inoue so much. And she was bleeding all over the place.

"Hime…" The voice was soft, so soft Ichigo marveled that he even heard it, and ragged, a strange gurgling coming from her chest. Then she went limp and Orihime let out a sob.

After that, Ichigo remembered movement, so much movement that he sometimes wondered if allies were injured by allies in the abrupt melee that followed. Orihime sent Tsubaki flying at the Arrancar at the same moment Ichigo leapt forward with a yell. He remembered the other shinigami falling from their bodies like startled soldiers all around him, remembered Rukia's normally chipper Mod Soul slugging his lifeless body over its shoulder and darting away. He remembered the other Mod Souls trying to shoo the remaining classmates away from the battle, remembered the dumbstruck faces of Tatsuki and Keigo and Mizuiro, remembered the last girl crying brokenly beside the long-haired girl's body.

Ichigo, with a hideous outcry, rushed between the groups, swinging Zangetsu widely at Ulquiorra, the strongest one there, only to be stopped when one of those Arrancar he didn't recognize appeared suddenly in front of him, a smirk stretched across their face. They were too close for him to dodge, too close for him to attack, and when they kneed him in the stomach he flew backwards until he crashed into a building across the street. The Arrancar, and another one he didn't know, were standing in front of him when he rose from the rubble, and though he tried to shunpu around the pair, they always seemed to be in his way.

When someone let a blood-curling scream behind him, he turned just in time to see Yammy standing before a terrified Mizuiro, who could actually see him, and the timid girl, the one screaming, who could only feel the evil, reiatsu he exuded. And before Ichigo could take one step in their direction, Yammy batted the two away as easily as if they had been dandelion seeds. From behind Ikkaku and Yumichika, Keigo let out a ragged sob. And Tatsuki slid out of Matsumoto's grasp as she sank to the ground.

"You were ordered to not speak to anyone, woman." There was a curious lack of inflection in Ulquiorra's voice as he stared blankly down at the Orihime, fairies unconscious all around her. "You were told your friends would be disposed of if you did not obey. And now… my Lord has ordered me to let you taste my steel," he continued, reaching down gracefully to grasp the hilt of his zanpaktou.

He hadn't drawn it from its sheath yet when Chad was suddenly in front of him, aiming a red and white armored arm at the Espada.

"NO!" Ichigo shouted, lunging forward to stop his friend, but was stopped by two opponents he was becoming increasingly annoyed with. Half-paying attention to his own battle, and half-to the others, he saw Chad continue to punch at Ulquiorra, the Arrancar dodging the blows with childlike ease, but they were getting farther and farther away from the others, and Ichigo realized with growing horror that Chad wasn't fighting to kill, he was fighting to distract. He knew there was no way he could defeat the stoic man.

He felt the tingling chill down his spine that signaled a garganta opening somewhere else. Then he felt it again. And again. And he cast a fast, desperate look over at the others.

In unison, they nodded, and scattered, only the Eleventh Division pair remaining. When Yumichika flash-stepped over beside Ichigo, dipped his head at the boy, indicating that he would take over fighting the pair, Ichigo flashed him a grateful smirk, full of cockiness that he didn't feel. He glanced once at Keigo as he darted past, still cowering behind Ikkaku, who was grinning arrogantly at Yammy, and promised to himself that he would come back and save his friend.

He never got to keep that promise.

He never made it to Chad either. Several flash steps away from the school, in the direction of the Shoten, a Cero exploded the ground right in front of him, causing him to slide to a stop, covering his face as he was showered with pieces of concrete and pavement.

He glanced up, and found himself staring straight into the glacial blue eyes of someone who hardly remembered what humanity was like.

"Grimmjow," he hissed.

The Sexta Espada stared down at him haughtily. His eyes were bright, his smile acid.

The battle that followed is something of a hazy memory to him. He remembers things in pieces, brief conversations, snapshots of things in stark relief. Whether this is because he doesn't want to remember, or because it was so, so long ago, he doesn't know. Probably some of both, he thinks.

He does remember entering bankai and he does remember the first blow the maniacal man landed on him. A deep thrust of his sword that skewered Ichigo from front to back. And he only remembers because the pain was immediate, intense, and unrelenting. He does remember, too, that when he fell from the sky like a falling star, he landed with a crash on this street outside the Urahara Shoten that he does _not_ remember ever running to. And before he could even tell himself to stand, Cero blasts fell from the sky like explosive rain, destroying the street, the buildings, the Shoten.

As he lay on the ground, telling himself to move, move, move, he saw a small, dark-haired blur rush past him and had just enough strength to shoot to his feet before Ururu was flying back past him, her scream raising the hair on the back of his neck, knocked forcibly backwards by Grimmjow.

That made him force himself back into the fight. With a flashstep, he was once again even with the crazed man, swords locked together. "Does it give you pleasure to crush an ant?!" He yelled.

The pause was answer enough, but Ichigo felt his blood boil in his veins when Grimmjow smiled with wicked glee, and said, "Yes."

He flew forwards again, the next several moments filled with only fighting. Dodge, kick, block, punch, duck, swing, fighting, fighting, fighting. Land a hit on Grimmjow's arm, ignore the blood streaming from a broken nose. Movement, never stopping, never still, never enough time to take in what was going on around him. Not until he felt a chill shoot straight down his spine and the sky over the city was torn open, the largest garganta Ichigo had ever seen, and filled with more malice and malicious intent than he had ever felt.

Ichigo gaped at the tear, instincts torn between staying and fighting Grimmjow and leaving and fighting whatever was coming out. Grimmjow appeared before him, a backhand sending him back into the ground. And when he looked up again, the Espada had been joined by another Arrancar Ichigo had never seen before.

"You can deal with this place," Grimmjow said, before letting his deranged eyes trail from Ichigo to whatever had appeared behind him. Tiling his head back, Ichigo felt his heart catch in his throat and knew that _that_ image, at least, would remain with him until the day he died.

Urahara was crying, cradling the dirty, bloody body of Ururu in his arms. Jinta, appearing in the doorway, took one look at her and shot forward with a broken cry, before Tessai laid a large hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

Ichigo remembered others coming out of the shop, too, people, _souls_, that he didn't recognize. They streamed from the store as he forced himself to roll out of the way of another Cero. And then he was running.

He felt that he knew now, what a mouse felt like when being chased by a cat. That growing horror as you realize the cat can catch you any time it wants, but is enjoying watching you squirm.

He can't recall much of being pursued by the Espada, who hadn't stop smirking since Ichigo had started running. He just remembered panting breaths, the sharp, insistent, _excruciating_ pain in his abdomen, the warm feel of blood running down his stomach, his legs, the terror. And then suddenly sliding around a corner and coming face-to-face with amused brown eyes that seemed insane even as they shined at him warmly.

"Aizen…" he whispered, feeling dread pool in his stomach.

"Kurosaki Ichigo," he greeted. He glanced over the boy's head. "Grimmjow." And then Ichigo was swatted away as lightly as if he had been a fly.

Shaking his head, as he tried to stand from the rubble, Ichigo felt the temperature in the area drop drastically and had never been so grateful to see Toshiro than at that moment. When he looked up, and blinked away the blurriness from his eyes, he saw the Tenth Division captain facing off with what had to be the elite of Hueco Mundo.

Aizen stood in the center, his smile as amiable as his eyes were cruel, his entire body language screaming that he was in control of the situation. And spread out around him was the rest of his army. Even as Ichigo watched, others were appearing, trailed after by the shinigami they had been fighting, until it seemed almost everyone was gathered there. And it didn't take a military genius to see that they were outnumbered.

"Kurosaki," Toshiro barked at him, "I went for reinforcements." Ichigo felt his heart raise with false, presumptuous hope. "Yamamoto should –" And even as he spoke, Ichigo could see the doors to Soul Society sliding open, and, what seemed to him, almost everyone he knew from Seireitei was there.

And for one, brief moment, they all stood there on the perilous edge of battle, until, at some hidden sign, they attacked.

The battle that followed was nothing short of chaos. Ichigo knows, he _knows_, he accidently hit people who were on his side. It was hard not to, not matter how he tried. And once he pulled his mask over his face, it was hard to remain human enough to care.

He and Grimmjow continued their game of cat and mouse, the Espada's laugh was wild and brittle, with an edge of hysteria, as he chased Ichigo through the throng of fighters.

Later, when he had had a chance to speak with everyone – everyone who _survived_ – he was able to make more sense of the things he saw, the faces and battles, as he played a deadly game of tag.

Rukia, who the first time he passed her was fighting the strangest Arrancar he had ever seen, and then when he saw her again, she was fighting a man who looked uncannily like himself. And she was staring at him, horrified, sobbing, and apologizing. At he spun to dodge a thrust of Pantera, he caught, out of the corner of his eye, Byakuya appearing before him, and, with a flurry of cherry-blossoms, defeated the man in a shower of blood.

He passed an effeminate pink-haired Espada, fighting with Mayuri. Then Ishida, arrows flying everywhere, as he fought a girl with what looked like wings. Then he saw Yoruichi tackle Soifon out of the way of a blast sent at her by a blonde-haired Espada. The Goddess of Flash was still, but as a shunpu brought him close for one second, he could see she was still breathing, but barely, and the Second Division Captain leapt that the female Arrancar, zanpaktou released, and hell in her eyes.

He heard Ichimaru, his voice as slippery as a snake on a slide, jokingly ask Kira and Rangiku, who were fighting him, if they were having a good time. He heard Tousen tell Shuuhei that this was all in the name of Justice, and how could he ever hope to understand that? He saw Hinamori, who shouldn't even be here to begin with, lunge at Hitsugaya, who tried to keep from hurting her. Her eyes were wide, brown, iced, crazy. And finally Hitsugaya knocked her unconscious to keep her from killing a comrade. Or trying to protect Aizen.

He saw that Captain with the dog-head fighting with Yammy. He saw that lieutenant with the glasses fighting with two female Arrancar, and Ichigo could see, even now, that she was losing. He saw the Primera Espada rise up in indifference, yawning, to fight Shunsui, as Ukitake knelt on the ground and coughed up blood behind them.

He saw Orihime run, breathless and panting, into the fray, grey eyes hard as they could be. She looked scared, but determined to stop him. How stupid, now that he thought about it. "Koten Zanshun!" He heard her yell, but the fairy was sliced from the air by a huge zanpaktou, the gangly Espada wielding it leering down at her.

"Women should know there place," he said, baring his teeth in a cross between a humorless smirk and a snarl. Then Ichigo had to turn away, Grimmjow drawing his attention away, but he could hear Orihime screaming like a banshee and couldn't do anything about it.

The next time he looked over, he couldn't see Inoue anywhere, and Kenpachi was fighting the Espada. The Eleventh Division Captain was grinning, his eyes big, dark, and excited, and he was still grinning, even as his opponent landed the final blow. And afterwards, he swatted Yachiru, bubbling, cute, always happy Yachiru, to the side, grinning as she cart wheeled through the air. His grin widened when she slammed into the ground with a sickening crash.

"Am I going to have to kill everyone in order for you to fight me?" Grimmjow asked, as Ichigo continued to dodge.

_Over my dead body_, he thought, before realizing it might be just that. Sliding to a halt, he tried to raise his fainting courage and dispel his fear.

He heard the sonorous metal blows around him, the dins of war. He saw friends fighting, bleedings, falling. He saw Ulquiorra sonido to Aizen's side and felt his heart sink as he thought about Chad. He saw Aizen standing like a tower in the middle of the conflict, grinning a horrible, ghastly smile. With a feeling of relief so great it shook him to his core, he saw Byakuya get close enough to fight the ex-Captain, and finally, _finally_, saw Yamamoto appear to help them.

"Are you afraid of me?"

Ichigo snorted at the teal-haired man smirking at him. "The word 'fear' isn't in my vocabulary."

"Yeah, but it's sure as fuck in your eyes, strawberry," Grimmjow answered, laughing like a madman.

Tightening his grip on Zangetsu, Ichigo darted forward, as fast as he could, only to freeze when Grimmjow grinned and said, "Grind, Pantera."

It had honestly never occurred to him that the Espada would do that. Looking back on it, he supposed that was rather stupid of him. If he could release Zangetsu, what was stopping him from releasing Pantera. Ichigo knew he _could_ do it, he just, for some reason, assumed he wouldn't. and what a mistake that turned out to be.

"Tell me, shinigami," the new Grimmjow said lowly, voice so low it was almost a purr, "How do you plan on defeating a god?" And before Ichigo could answer, Grimmjow was on him.

Minutes, hours, _days_, later, he couldn't tell, he lay at Grimmjow's feet, bleeding from more places than he could count, Zangetsu broken, just like his spirit, as his opponent stared down at him. "You disappoint me, shinigami. I was told you were incredibly powerful."

Ichigo felt his eyes begin to close, drifting away from the Sexta Espada and focusing on the blurry image behind him. Byakuya, fighting Aizen, though the brunette appeared to be toying with the Kuchiki more than actually engaging him in battle.

"You call yourself a god?" Byakuya hissed, kensikan broken, hair plastered to a bloody, sweaty face that looked out of place on the normally stoic man.

His answer was given haughtily. "Indeed I do."

"I will skin you alive," he snarled. "Ban –"

"Wait." Ichigo saw Yamamoto appear suddenly, let his eyes drift to where the Captain-Commander had been fighting, and saw the bodies of his two opponents were almost gone now, featureless and disintegrating in the face of his fire. "I will fight him."

"Oh?" The sound was playfully surprised. "The Captain-Commander wished to fight with me one-on-one, I am honored," he said, accompanying it with a mock bow.

"Before I destroy you," Yamamoto said, voice sounding tired and aged, "I wish to know what you hoped to accomplish here."

"What I will is fate," Aizen said, going into villainous monologue, and the only reason Ichigo cared, was because it made all the Espada stop and listen to their _god_, giving him a moment to recuperate. "And I will that, in my new world, strength will be the defining factor of your ability to exist. If you are weak, the strong will not protect you. Strength, is what will bring progress. Strength brings possibilities and opens doors. I just need to kill you and get rid of the shadow of Soul Society."

"Sousuke, without the King's Key, you cannot hope to accomplish this, and you cannot hope to create that for another two months time."

For a moment, Ichigo felt a swift flare of rage from the man so intense it was almost divine. And maybe it was. He didn't understand anything anymore. "Ah, but here is where you are mistaken, Yamamoto. While it is true, that now is not the ideal time to create the King's Key, you foolishly believe I _can't_ do it at all. You are basing your victory on this assumption, but I assure you… I _will_ be victorious."

"What… are you saying?"

"What I am saying is: now that I have said I will kill you, your death has been assured." And as that demon, that fiend, smirked his triumphant smile, his Espada circled their opponents like predators moving in for the kill, like sharks scenting blood.

"Hurry up, shinigami," Grimmjow said, dragging Ichigo's attention back to him, his thick-muscled masculinity warring with the fluting voice he suddenly affected. "Aizen-sama could blow up your town at any moment, you wouldn't want _everyone_ to die would you?" And Ichigo had just managed to drag himself to his feet, when Aizen spoke.

"My, my, it feels like a waste of my time even to kill you," he said, and something in his smooth voice made Ichigo take notice. "Ah, well." He flashed Yamamoto a victorious smirk. "This is what happens when you underestimate others, Yamamoto. I have been planning for this moment for one hundred years. You could have prevented all of this, had you only learned of this plan sooner. But you are weak minded and feeble. And in that knowledge, despair, and die…"

And then the world shattered around them.

Ichigo heard screaming, someone let out a howl like a wounded dog, he heard the unmistakable sound of cracking bone, and then that strange sensation that means a Senkai Gate is opening someone near.

When he finally had enough presence of mind to raise his head again, many of the people were gone, the ones who had stayed were all still, just waiting. Aizen, still in the center of the mayhem, loomed over the body of Yamamoto like the vengeance of God, his eyes shining like the Devil's, his pernicious strength undiminished, even though the most skilled shinigami had fallen before him. His Espada scattered around him, their visages and statures like some sort of Roman pantheon.

Ichigo felt something akin to nervousness seep into his veins like poison, as he saw Grimmjow raise one wickedly clawed hand, too close, too fast. His body too slow, too weak, to broken to dodge, to move, to roll out of the way. His mind scrambled like a squirrel trying to get out of a trap as Grimmjow reached for his throat.

"Grimmjow, come, we are leaving."

The Espada paused at the abrupt command, glancing at Ichigo, shrugging, and vanishing back to his master's side in the span of a second.

Ichigo fell boneless to the ground, too surprised to move, to scream, to cry. It was over. The war was over. And they had lost.

It wasn't until someone, he couldn't remember who, too shell-shocked to care, had stumbled and crawled over to him, asked if he was alive, that he thought about the others. Inoue, Ishida, Chad, oh God, Keigo and Tatsuki and Mizuiro. Anyone else in Karakura, or what was left of it, that could see spirits, like… his eyes widened and he felt the fear shoot through him… like Karin and Yuzu… oh God…

He couldn't remember how he made it to his house, how he ignored the pain that seemed to come from _everywhere_ and run, run, run there as fast as he could. Only to fall to his knees in front of the rubble that was once his house.

He marveled that he couldn't cry. Why couldn't he cry? He felt so lost, broken, helpless, weak. A choked sob tore through him, the sound harsh and sudden in the strange quiet of the street.

After that, he remembers nothing. Ishida told him later that he had passed out, fallen unconscious from shock and blood-loss. And when he woke up, in a makeshift building made of scattered pieces of debris, in the now open-to-the-outside training grounds that were once _under_ the Shoten, he was staring straight into his father's tearful eyes.

"D-dad?" His voice sounded strained, unused, throat dry. "Yuzu?" His father nodded. "And – and Karin?" A pause, and his father looked down, gave one slow, solemn shake of his head.

He remembered, remembered distinctly, everything, _everything_, about the gathering they held that day, the meeting they held to tally deaths and casualties, each black line another friend gone. There were so many lines…

Chad was killed by Ulquiorra. Ikkaku told him later that, by the time the Eleventh Division member had caught up with them, it had been too late. Chad hadn't even stood a chance. The Forth Espada was not one who was interested in playing games or in partaking in hand-to-hand combat with a human. It was amazing the boy had managed to lure him away at all. Inoue had been killed by the Fifth Espada, the same as Kenpachi. Yachiru wasn't killed by the severe backhand he dealt her, but without the Captain, she… just wasn't ever going to be the same. Most of his classmates had been killed. Tatsuki was still alive, and Keigo. Well, it was more like they simply _weren't dead_. They were shells. That wasn't living.

His father told him that Karin had been protecting Yuzu when she died. Kon, too. And wasn't it the stupidest thing in the world for a _stuffed animal_ to dive in the way of an energy blast? His body hadn't made it, either. Neither had any other the other gigais. But, he supposed that meant he was stuck like this.

Ichigo had seen enough at the Shoten to know that Ururu was dead. But to learn that Tessai had died as well, and Cloud, trying to protect Jinta, that was knew.

Yoruichi survived when Soifon shoved her out of the way, but the Second Division Captain wasn't so lucky. Shuuhei was killed by his ex-Captain, the blind man preaching about justice even as he killed his lieutenant. Rangiku was killed by Gin and Kira… didn't even try to fight him, he didn't have it in him to raise his sword against the man he felt so strongly for, and he was killed along with her.

Komamura was the only Captain that Ichigo knew of that was killed by a mere fraccion, this huge (enormous, really) fraccion. The insane Espada-scientist killed Mayuri, and as he died, so did his daughter, whatever that meant. Nanao was killed by two female Arrancar Ichigo had never heard of, and he was told later that they were Fraccion. Whatever.

Byakuya managed to kill the Ninth Espada, whom, Ichigo found out later, had assumed the face of Rukia's old lieutenant. And Yamamoto managed to take out two Espada, just two, the Seventh and the Second, before he was killed by Aizen. And Ichigo was fairly certain a handful of Fraccion were killed. Or maybe it was just a couple. And maybe some of them weren't even fraccion, maybe they were just some of the dozens and dozens of Arrancar that Aizen had created, but belonged to no Espada.

Others, were injured and died later. One of Ukitake's third seats was injured trying to help her sister and bled to death. And even the Fourth Division Captain. She had tried to stop Aizen, and, though a Captain, she was no fighter, and Aizen has no mercy. Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell, he supposed.

He stared at the blank faces around him, everyone so empty and cold. Yumichika was silent and subdued, a bandage wrapped haphazardly across his face, the jagged gash already starting to bleed again. Jinta and Yuzu had cried themselves to sleep in Urahara and his father's laps. Hitsugaya looked stricken, completely unaccustomed to being without his bubbling lieutenant, for the first time he realized how used to her presence he was and know that he was without her, he wasn't sure what to do. Ishida was openly crying, heart-wrenching sobs that Ichigo never would have imagined being able to come from the bespectacled boy, and wasn't it shocking for Ichigo to _just then_ realize that he and Inoue had been dating?

Byakuya looked… absolutely expressionless. An emotion seeming to stem from the fact that Rukia was… unstable, was the best way to put it. After hearing Ukitake's short, hushed explanation of Kaien, Ichigo could understand. How Rukia managed to avoid death in the final battle was anyone's guess, maybe she was born under a lucky star or something, but she was never quite right after that. None of them really were, but she was one of the worst. Ichigo didn't know it then, but later it would become common for her to wake up screaming, screaming, screaming and never stop.

It was Ishida, scholarly, top-student Ishida, who decided to give the day its name, the name that they still used to this day, as precisely as they could. "There's a Latin hymn," he said, voice breathless with the aftereffects of his crying, "That describes Judgment Day."

It was appropriate, Ichigo thought. Judgment Day, indeed, since Aizen had certainly put the fear of God into them. Ishida called it _Dies Irae_. The Days of Wrath. How appropriate, indeed. Here, at the end of all things that they once knew.

Urahara called it entropy, that all things in the universe tend towards disorder. Ichigo though, he didn't like to think that the outcome of this battle had been decided even before it had started. This was his fault, their fault, it was… he didn't know, but he could have stopped it, _someone_ could have stopped it, he was sure. He just wasn't sure how.

It was days, weeks, he didn't know when, before they even understood exactly what Aizen had done. And wasn't it the most anticlimactic thing you could think of. It was true, that to create the King's Key in its entirety, he would have had to wait until the winter. But he didn't. So he took the power that he could, and simply hit the shinigami where it hurt. Seireitei. How… well, anticlimactic was the only term Ichigo could thing of to give it. He knew they had all expected some in-depth, intricate plan, but really, Aizen was just impatient and sick of them, so decided to take out enough of them to destroy them. To tear down a wall, you only needed to remove a few stones from the bottom, you didn't have to tear down the whole thing yourself. Eventually, it would just collapse on their own.

Ichigo hadn't been back there since the battle. And, staring at Yoruichi's hollow eyes and trembling hands when she returned from Soul Society, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

They lost because Aizen was too impatient to wait for the winter, and used Inoue as an excuse to move his plans along. And Seireitei took the brunt of the power. Ichigo would have laughed at the fact that they lost because Aizen didn't have any patient, but, so many people had died because of it, that it wasn't really that funny at all.

From what Ichigo could gather, Seireitei looked a lot like Karakura. And, looking around, he knew the sight would be awful. Buildings falling down even as he watched, bodies still littering the streets, flung around to land at awkward angles, bloodstains everywhere. Smoke and fires, strange glowing flames from kido spells. Souls wandering dazed and confused with the proof of their grisly deaths. A teenage girl with a slit throat. A young boy with blood streaming down half his face. A woman, round with pregnancy, red stains coating her front and back.

Ichigo felt sick.

Time passed slowly at the beginning, oh so slowly, as they tried to situate themselves. Aizen seemed content to watch them scurry about like ants. And for a while, they did just that, until Yoruichi told them it was becoming harder and harder to open the Senkai Gates, and, soon, it would be nearly impossible.

So the others returned to Soul Society. Yoruichi, too. And Urahara. Rukia stayed. And Renji stayed. Everyone else returned.

The last Ichigo had heard, they were… functioning. Sort of.

Urahara, distraught over Ururu's death, had taken over Yamamoto's position to try and hold together the fragile thread keeping Soul Society from collapsing, and Yoruichi took over Soifon's. Between the two of them, it _was_ possible to open a gate, it was just very tedious, and nowadays, Arrancar were all over Karakura, waiting. And watching. They were Aizen's eyes. Jinta had taken over at the Shoten, staying there with Ririn and Nova.

Isane took up Unohana's post and Ichigo heard that the Third Seat retired, and they gave the lieutenant spot to Hanatarou. Renji's place was never filled, even though he was a permanent fixture in the human world. Iba took over for Komamura. Ikkaku became Eleventh Division Captain, just like he always wanted, and Yumichika got to hold Third Seat, just like _he_ always wanted, though not in the way either of them wanted it to happen. Yachiru remained lieutenant, but, Ichigo heard she was as vacant these days as Nemu used to be back in the old days. Akon and Rin took over the Twelfth. And, because of the sheer number of loses, Third and Ninth Divisions were disbanded. And then the Fifth as well, when Hinamori finally completely lost it and had to be… taken care of. She never left the Fourth Division now and Ichigo sometimes thought it would have been better for her to have died in the final battle at the hands of her ex-captain, like some of the others had.

His father and Yuzu had left Japan, it was better for them if they did. And his father sent letters to Ichigo until they day he died. Yuzu married a nice, normal boy, lived a nice, uneventful life, and died as happily as she could many years later.

Ishida decided that he had had enough. The death of Inoue had shaken him to his core, and when Ryuuken died (cancer, who could have seen _that_ coming?) he decided to treat normal, human patients, as a normal doctor. Admittedly, the town of Karakura was basically a third-world country, so he couldn't really charge people. But he said he'd had enough with death. And so he helped people for the rest of his life.

And the last he had heard, in that brief meeting with Yoruichi so many years ago, was that his friends were there now. They had made it to Soul Society at least. Karin even went to the Academy, what was left of it, and served under Toshiro, as permanent a fixture to Hitsugaya's side now as Matsumoto had been in the old days.

But after the endless process of days, months… years… those people were a memory of a memory of a memory now. Ichigo couldn't remember their voices anymore. He could barely remember what they looked like. Karin had his face, he knew. But Yuzu had grown up, and he hadn't got to see it all. What did she look like after his father had died and their had been no letters? And Ishida's eyes were… what color were they? He couldn't remember anymore. Or Inoue's hair color. Or what Chad's voice sounded like. Or anything.

There must still be some shinigami in the world, killing Hollows, performing konso on souls, since the scales of good and evil and _completely_ tipped, since the world hadn't ended. Ichigo assumed they went about their business as usual and he wondered if they knew what had happened, wondered if they knew what had happened in soul Society. Or if they just continued to do their job and were content with that. Those shinigami, the ones already stationed throughout the world, must be scattered to the four winds by now. Not that Soul Society did anything to help the situation. Why should they? As long as the scales stayed mostly uneven, what was the point really?

And besides, in today's world, shinigami were mostly confined to Soul Society, only leaving in dire circumstances, cloaked in secrecy and darkness.

And it wasn't long after the others left them, that the land began to change. That the ever-during-dark that Ichigo remembered seeing through the garganta, the unessential night that Aizen had created covered all of Japan. Until it seemed to Ichigo that the entire country was a copy of the ruins of Hueco Mundo. And everything was dead and dark and quiet and those that were not Hollow or Arrancar scurried around in the darkest shadows like rats, hoping, praying, not to be noticed.

But humans are nothing if not adaptable, even in the most hellish situations. And so the humans changed, adapted, _evolved_. Until it was rare that a human was born who could _not_ see spirits, or Hollows, or Arrancar, or all of them. Until a good many in every number could fight back with some manner of defense. So many high-ranking Espada, breathing down the neck of the city like vicious beasts, and the city was practically seeped in reiatsu.

Ichigo supposed that's how the Quincy had manifested their powers hundreds of years ago. Not from any real desire to protect, as Ishida had once boasted so long ago, but for self-preservation, the instinct to live. Fight. _Survive_.

Of course, there were, still, those who could not see the enemy. Those who had no idea what hit them when a Hollow attacked them. And even though a good number could, the city, the country, wasn't a thriving populace anymore. Tokyo was in ruins. And the blackness spread from there like poison. The race of man had ended. At least in Japan. Humans weren't at the top of the food chain anymore. And once the wall went up, there was no way out. Trapped like rats in a cage. And instead of cheese, they were locked in with hungry, demon cats.

It was strange to look back and realize, and _understand_, that all of this happened because of one man. One normal shinigami. Because Aizen had been normal. Once. Until he just woke up one morning and decided to go completely insane. Until he claimed he was God. Good for him.

Not so much for everyone else.

Aizen had broken this town, this country. What he found in peace, he left in pieces. That beast, that _demon_, created this place, this realm of night, this frightened deep. Where everyone was expected to obey the 'will of Heaven.'

Japan was now an island fraught with myth. And Karakura was the center of this domain, the heart of hell, Vallombrosa, the Valley of Shadows. If you traveled far enough into Tokyo, you could see Mt. Fuji, though no one called it that anymore, no one _remembered_ that name anymore. The Mountains-That-Burn, whose grisly tops belched fire and rolling smoke night after endless night, filling the area with the stench of ever-burning sulphur.

And the remnants where the final confrontation took place, the holy battleground, was a place no one went, not if they could help it. Silent as an empty Church (not that there were any Churches here, not anymore) and seemed in so much malicious reiatsu, the air choked and suffocated you, pressing down on you as fierce as ten furies, as terrible as hell.

So here, in the vast and boundless deep, they waited. But for what? What was left? Nothing. That's what. Not. One. Thing. They were waiting for nothing, just kept going on, they had nothing better to do with their time, nothing to look forward to for save that the Espada never noticed them, for they were predatory and evil and damned, no matter how alluring some of them may be.

So they waited here in faded bliss, hoping that things would change, but knowing that it wouldn't.

For what place can be for us within Heaven's bound, unless Heaven's Lord supreme we overpower? Because he who is sovereign can dispose and bid what's right. We must then, simply hope that everlasting Fate shall yield to fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.

* * *

**A/N:** Okay, I have an excuse, I swear, and it's school, okay? Developmental Psych is literally _killing_ me. _Killing. Me_. I like the class. The tests are inhumane. They're harder than my Micro tests. Or my Chemistry tests from last semester. So, school is gay. With a capital GAY. And also, I'm saving up for an EF-Tour to Japan, that I _hope_ I can go on this summer, but it's such last minute, I might have to wait a whole year. And… well, now I'm just depressed. XP

1. Yeah, Inoue told. Which is what she freakin _should_ have done.

2. The Arrancar that the people don't recognize are Fraccion. So if it seems like there are WAY too many Espada, they're aren't. I don't want to get specific with the Fraccion yet, because I don't know who I'm killing off just yet. Gotta outline that. Since I just hit that point in the manga, and I'm gonna kill the ones I find the most annoying. Lol.

3. Those classmates are actual classmates, I did not make them up. The "curly-haired brunette" is Mahana (I don't know her last name), the girl who asked Rukia if she likes Ichigo. The "long-haired girl with dark hair" is Ryo Kunieda, the girl who's always reading and who can run the 100 meters in 12 seconds flat. The one who loves Inoue is obviously Chizuru Honsho (I think is her last name). And the last girl, the timid one is Michiru something-or-other.

4. Ururu probably didn't _want_ to fight Grimmjow, but she's got those anti-Hollow thingy-ma-bobs, and that's what happened when Renji was fighting Ilforte outside the shop.

5. Yeah, I killed the three Espada I care about the least. I was going to let Aaroniero live and kill Yammy, since Aaroniero is fun to write, but the battle didn't want to pan out that way. It hates me like that.

6. The entire last paragraph are random lines from John Milton's _Paradise Lost_.

7. OMG! Look how many freakin people I killed! Well, all the humans would have been dead after a hundred years anyone, so it's not like they'd be there if I DIDN'T kill him.

8. Also, I'm gonna be doing chapters like this, in different people's perspectives. Eventually, it will be mostly Szayel's and the OC 's (who, I've just realized, has no name yet, oops). But I wanted to do the battle/new Japan thing from at least the OC and a shinigami. PLOT in the next chapter. I think. Lol.

9. Also, I FINALLY know how I'm getting the two of them together. And yes, I started a story without knowing the plotline. Yay me! But, I decided to add quotes to the beginning of the chapters, and I was writing one down the other day and was like, "OMG! Plot!" So, updates should be… faster-ish. (Exam time, sorry.) Since, now, I know where I'm going. And I like the flow of writing this story, it feels different than my other ones.

And, uh, I know I don't deserve you being nice to me after the hellish wait but… reviews?


	3. These Days

**Title:** The City Of Masks  
**Genre:** Romance / Horror / Angst  
**Rating:** M (for dark themes)  
**Pairing:** Szayel x OC, probably others (mentions of Ishida x Orihime)  
**Spoilers:** Only for sword releases, because it's completely AR  
**Summary:** The question of good or evil, reduced to one simple choice: Survive. Or perish.  
**Word Count:** 3,142  
**Warnings:** Alternate Reality, massive character deaths, 100-years post Winter War in which the shinigami lose and Aizen pwns.

**Disclaimer:** Szayel is mine. _Mine_ I tell you! Summary though, belongs to _Heroes_.

**A/N:** Was watching Renji and Szayel fight and decided that Szayel ties with Grimmjow for my favorite Espada. Why, I don't know. Probably because I'm still angst-ing over Renji killing Ilforte. And no one ever writes about poor Szay. So I'll do it.

* * *

"_There is nobody that Aizen is afraid of. That is why we follow him. For we, who were born of fear, the path of the fearless one shines as brightly as the moonlight."  
__ -Iceringer, Episode 145: The Espada Gather! Aizen's Royal Assembly_

* * *

One hundred years later, and the fearful, scared Rukongai girl who suddenly tumbled head-first into a great and perilous battle, was not timid little girl anymore. One could not retain their childhood, their innocence when one lived in a world like this one had become.

The world was changed now. Different. This world was a hard place to live in now. And shinigami needed to know different things nowadays, things that they had never needed to know. She had the faces of the remaining Espada memorized now, she treated them with respect, when she came across them, because, no matter how depressing it was, she liked her life. She was used to it. She had grown up in this world. This world where Hollow was king and shinigami and humans were the scum beneath their claws.

To grow up in this place, this suspended hell, could make even the most bubbling shinigami a hardened, disaffected individual. She wondered sometimes, what the city, the country, would have been like had the war never happened. She supposed it must have been a nice place, beautiful even. Now it was just a void of a place, formless and infinite with raging fires, the edges of the country was a world of rising waters dark and deep.

Aizen-sama's word was law now. After living for so long here in the silent dark, it was something one came to accept. That Heaven's dread emperor, Aizen Sousuke, omnipotent, immutable, immortal, infinite, eternal, hath, through force, been made supreme above his equals. To him shall bow all knees in Heaven.

Soul Society wasn't so much of a dictatorship; that she knew and even vaguely remembered from her all-too-brief time in Rukongai.

Standing as she was now, on the crumbling remnants of some building, she stared disinterestedly down at the broken city. The piece of cement she was standing on was barely large enough for her feet, but it didn't seem to bother her. She just stood, silent, still, unmoving. She felt a million years old, alone and lonely.

Heaving a desolate sigh, she knew she could not stay standing here forever. She must have been here for several hours already, but it was so hard to tell, since the sky forever retained its shade of twilight grey and never ever changed. But she had to find something to eat and that could take ages, the animals that had adapted to this new world were as skittish as the humans, and all meaty flesh, just muscles covered in bone like the rest of them.

A flashstep, then two, and she was on the ground, glancing left, then right, trying to sense any reiatsu, then she set off, moving like a wraith, silent and shadowed. The night (day?) was so silent that it might hold any manner of Hollows or Arrancar. The chance that something was prowling out there in the ever-during darkness was high, and she had no desire to run into anything.

Creeping through the city, always alert, always aware, keeping a wary eye on the small groups of humans she passed through and around. Most humans didn't like the few shinigami in the city; the sight of them always reminded the people of the shinigami's failure. Not that she had anything to do with that, she was not a part of _that_. But, it's not like they cared.

In the center of the city, she knew there was a river, some of it bridges now cataracts of empyreal kido fire. Sometimes the stringy, timid beasts that lived here congregated there. But when she finally reached the shore, the only thing there besides herself was an odd-numbered group of a few souls, speaking in hushed tones and casting fearful wide-eyed looks around them. They scattered when she appeared before them with a flashstep.

She stood there, wondering what she should do now, wondering if it was worth the effort to eat today, or if she should maybe just wait until tomorrow. As she stood, she stared unseeingly into the murky water, reflecting her image back like the dark surface of black glass.

Slender and lithe, like most were here, from less food and more running. The shinigami uniform she'd taken from someone's body so long ago was ragged, worn, and noticeably sewn in several places with different colored fabric. She'd wear this as long as she could, she only had so many, and, since money was obsolete here, you had to trade for goods, and she had little to trade. She'd almost killed herself trying to pay the cost for the boots she was wearing. Luckily, humans were nothing if not resilient, and craftsman had luckily started appearing as people needed things humans were so used to machines making.

She was nothing special to look at, though at one time she might have been, had her life not turned out like this. Her skin was pale, a smooth pale white, like cold ashes. Or, at least that's the color it was underneath all the sweat and dirt and bruises. Her hair a bright natural blonde, now greasy and pulled into a messy ponytail, tied with some twine. And her eyes were green. And not the soft green that most people imagine when they picture green eyes. No, her eyes weren't soft or pretty, they were cold, with a hard inhuman gleam to them, like dark green glass. The world was hard. And so, were the people.

"Yue?"

She turned at the deep voice, idly fingering the sheath at her side. "Renji," she greeted coolly.

His red hair was gleaming under the faux moonlight; his eyes were just the same color. The haori he'd ripped the sleeves off of, showed muscle definition that might have been chiseled with – well, a chisel. His skin was pale, his tattoos stood out starkly, though, in the dark, his face was shadowed from her sight.

He stepped closer to her, eyes trailing along the riverbanks out of habit. "Nothing here, I see."

She shrugged. "Clearly. Were you looking for something to eat, as well?"

It was his turn to shrug.

The two fell into a silence, not comfortable, not uncomfortable, just silence. There wasn't much to talk about here, and with the ever-threat of Arrancar, it was never good to be too noisy. There was camaraderie between the two, some of the only shinigami here. She might have never been to Seireitei or the Shinigami Academy, but, well, here she was now. And now was all that mattered.

"I heard that Aizen-sama created several more Arrancar," she said suddenly.

Renji snorted. "Like I care about anything that bastard does."

She turned to him, frowning. "You should not speak about Aizen-sama like that. He is, after all, the king of this new wor-"

"I will not serve a false king," he said. "Which is what he is."

At that, she laughed, a harsh sound, like breaking glass. "He who holds the keys to Heaven, rules the world, Renji. And Aizen-sama not only has the keys, he created them. And the door."

He made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat and she winced at its loudness. He fell silent for so long after that, that she wondered if he would speak again, but he did, so suddenly she started. "How does it not bother you?"

"Hm?"

"This," his flailing gesture encompassing their surroundings. "How does it not… bother you? In Seireitei-"

"I never knew that place," she interrupted quietly, staring at the crumbling skyline across the river. "And… well, I suppose it is because I know that I cannot change it. One has to make the best of the situations that they find themselves in. The mind can make a heaven out of hell, a hell out of heaven."

"This place is no heaven."

A half shrug. She had never said it was, had she? "Things could be worse, Renji. What can we suffer more? What can we suffer worse?"

Renji heaved a sigh, glancing around again, before his gaze fell back on her. "Do you think you would have been a shinigami if things hadn't turned out… like this?"

When she turned to him, there was a small, sad smile on her face. "You ask me that almost every time you see me, and I always tell you the same thing." A sigh. "I do not know, Renji. I just know what there is. And that this must be our fate, for shinigami to be no more."

"Sad fate."

She hm-ed in agreement to that. Yes, it was a sad fate, but, well, there was nothing they could do to change things. And she had a feeling that _trying_ to change things would succeed only in insuring that they lost their lives. And she didn't want that. She didn't want to tell him that this place was their home and coffin.

"We'll change things one day."

"You really believe that?" She asked, turning her green eyes to him. They were shining, even in the dark.

"Well, yeah. It'll be hard, but, we've gotta win in the end, don't we?"

She turned back to staring aimlessly at the water. "I'm not so sure Renji. Besides, what would you be fighting for this time? Seireitei is a mere shadow of its old self, from what I've heard; this town is just some forgotten piece of land, there's nothing left to fight for. Changing things back to the way they were… it seems practically impossible, don't you think?"

"Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light."

She scoffed, but before she could open her mouth an answer, the sound of feet on concrete made them both turn around.

"Hey," the newcomer greeted them both. "You done?" This was directed at only Renji.

Yue had never met Kurosaki Ichigo before the collapse of this town, had never met _any_ of them before that, so she didn't know what kind of person he had been back when he still had hope. She didn't know if his eyes always had that haunted, shadowed look to them. Didn't know if he'd always been so ghostly pale or sickeningly slender, like he didn't care about himself anymore. She didn't know if he'd always had such an aura of defeat hanging around him like a cloak.

Renji nodded, and Yue tilted her head, amused at the differences between their two strange hair colors. Renji's was a flaming red; Ichigo's a blondish hue that was more of a hot red gold. She wondered if they were related, but didn't care enough to ask.

She turned back to the river after they left, going back to contemplating her impending dinner-less evening.

_You should head back now, Yue, it's getting late_.

She rolled her eyes, but turned dutifully back towards her… home? Residence? _How can you even tell?_ She asked her zanpaktou. _It always looks the same here_.

_I can tell_. The voice sounded petulant. _It is good survival skills to know when it gets this late. You know how they like to come out at this time_.

"Hm." It was true. At true-dark, the time when, had there been a sun in the sky, it would have gone down and made it well and truly nighttime, the offspring of Heaven, the _Espada_ and their underlings, like to leave their palace in the otherworld and… visit this town.

She supposed being a god must be incredibly boring. To know that you were stronger than anyone you presided over, there must not be must to do except fight with each other. And come to terrorize the masses. She knew that the Arrancar were mostly male, females were the minority, and, well, why try to woo and seduce your way into bed with someone who might possibly be stronger than you, when down below there were plenty of females you could simply force into your bed.

It took the humans a while to figure it out. At first they thought it was only a few incidents, but it became more and more common over time, and now it was just another aspect of living here, another danger to watch out for.

_Hopefully we don't run into any –_

The garganta opened suddenly and abruptly several yards in front of her.

- _one_, she finished lamely, before sighing. _Me and my big mouth_.

For a moment, she stood frozen, instincts telling her to remain still, that maybe they wouldn't notice her in the half-light of the faux-moon. She stared at them as they looked around, a half-dozen of them. She was entranced by their godlike shapes and forms, for even the most hideous of them had beautiful faces.

Her eyes darted from one to the other, and she felt her heart beat harshly in relief when she realized that the warlike angel, the Sixth Espada, Grimmjow Jeagerjacques, was not among them. Every time she seemed to come across him, he was always trying to kill her. Arrancar will do that, you know. But he was still obsessed with the color of blood, the way it looked when falling from someone, pooling on the ground. He was a man obsessed with killing. He'd become a fierce creature of the night, without thought or heart or conscious.

But just because _he_ was not here, did not mean she was any safer. The group before her all had that oh-so-familiar perverted gleam in their eyes. The one that basically said, 'I'm gonna rape you.' It was not a pleasant sight.

_Yue…_

_I know!_

She slid one foot backwards, preparing to move as fast as she could, but the heel of her boot hit a rock and she winced as it went clattering across the ground. Six heads snapped towards her, and six mouths stretched in wide, distorted grins. Simultaneously, three of them stepped forward.

"Back off," a small, dark-haired one said, and Yue realized with a relieved start that none of these men were Espada. "This one's mine, go find your own." He grinned at her, the large canines hanging from his mask and framing his face glinted in the light, mirroring the predatory gleam in his eyes.

She recognized him for the one of underlings of the previous Second Espada, who had been killed, she had heard, by the soutaicho in the final battle. Vega, she knew his name was, watching warily as the others sonido-ed off in various directions and left the two of them alone.

He was staring at her like a predator staring at its next meal and when he shifted his stance, she bolted.

_My life seems to involve a lot of running,_ she thought, dodging a Cero and yelping in surprise when rubble rained down on top of her.

_Where are you running anyone, little moon?_

Yue didn't answer, because she didn't know. She was simply running in the direction her brain told her was 'away.' If she had eaten recently, she would have tried to fight him off, at least injured him enough that she could escape easier. But she was so hungry, so weak from lack of food, that it would have been meaningless to engage in combat.

When Vega appeared in front of her suddenly, she neatly sidestepped him, but he grabbed her arm, hauling her back with a yank. She twisted in his grasp, stumbling when he released her, landing catlike, then swept with a booted foot, trying to knock him off his feet. It worked, and she was up and running before he could orient himself enough to retaliate.

_Not good, not good,_ she thought frantically, when she heard him scream in aggravation and come after her again.

_Yue, left here!_

She pirouetted suddenly, listening without question, and when she skidded out of the alleyway, she recognized the area. A shout behind her caused her to send a wide-eyed glance over her shoulder, before she scrambled forward, banging on the door or the building she'd come out near.

She door lid open soundlessly and she stared up at the tall redhead, panting, and casting terrified looks behind her.

"Another oracle?" When she nodded, the young man sighed, and moved to the side, letting her in.

"Thank you," she said gratefully, sliding past him.

She heard him mumble something, before he walked out, and seconds later, she felt a barrier go up around the shop, hiding it, making it invisible, unnoticeable, safe. She collapsed to the floor in relief.

"What are you doing out so late?"

"I was looking for something to eat at the river," she answered, craning her neck to look into his frowning face when he came back in. "Sorry, Jinta."

He stared at her for another long moment. "Whatever, just sleep here tonight, and don't let it happen again."

Her lips quirked in a small smile. That's what he said last time an oracle had chased her here.

Well, technically, oracles were simply normal fraccion. But when the Second Espada, Barragan, had been killed, his group of mindless followers, the four that were left, had been left without a leader. So, Aizen-sama and the others simply used them as messengers, forcing them to carry announcements and such to wherever they needed them to go. Some human who'd managed to survive the last battle, a professor at some college, had said that, in mythology, oracles relayed the messages of the gods. And so they were called.

And as much as she hated the way the world had turned out, she knew it was not the fault of any one man, no matter how much Renji and the humans wanted to place all the blame on Aizen-sama. One does not simply wake up one morning and decide to destroy the world. Something has to drive you to that point. And, though Yue had never stepped foot in Seireitei, and hardly remembered Soul Society at all, if it could drive someone to go to such extremes to destroy it… maybe it wasn't as nice a place as people thought. From what she heard, Soul Society killed a lot of would-be allies. Ichigo's friend had been the last Quincy because of them, the two Mod Souls that lived here at the Shoten were the last, she thought. Even Ichigo himself, a vaizard, and the other group like him, who appeared from time to time, Soul Society had wanted them destroyed. A place that could destroy even their allies…

Aizen-sama was powerful, but Yue had never thought he was crazy. Misguided, yes. And maybe a little lonely. But never crazy. His Espada were crazy. They were the ones who hurt the people in this town. If anything, every time Aizen-sama held them in check, he was protecting them. So, she disliked the world, but not the leaders. What kind of person did that make her?

_Yue?_

"Hm?" She questioned out loud, startled out of her musings.

_What now?_

She sighed. _I don't know, Yanagi, I just don't know anymore._

* * *

**A/N**: Yeah, so, next chapter, I think we'll go an see what going on in Hueco Mundo, with Szayel and Aizen and all, since we're three chapters in and, uh, well, we haven't seen Szay yet. For shame!

This chapter was kind of an intermediate chapter anyway. I just wanted a little glimpse at life in Karakura nowadays.

Also: this chapter has been written for so long, you don't even know. I thought it was posted already, lol. Oops.

1. On Yue's name: In Mandarin Chinese, 'Yue' means 'moon.' The same symbol in Japanese is read as 'tsuki' and also means 'moon.'

2. One the whole 'Arrancar-raping-people-thing': Yeah, well, it happens in the third world countries of today so it's not outside the realm of logic. So, well, Karakura's basically a crap place now. Not a lot of food and all and they're ruled by a guy who'd subordinates are some bad mother-fuckers.

3. On Yue's zanpaktou: 'Yanagi' is Japanese for 'willow'. In mythology, willow trees have been associated with the dark moon goddesses, like Hecate, Circe, and Persephone. And since Yue's name means 'moon'…


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